Blended People of America

Within the last decade, the United States has seen a major increase in the number of immigrant artists and ethnic artists within the Hollywood limelight. More actors, singers, musicians, and even film directors in the United States have either immigrant parents or grandparents or have come from afar themselves, with the dream to succeed in the world’s biggest stage.

Today, we are able to find more ethnic actors on television and on the big screen, since, relatively speaking, our country’s ethnic population has risen in the last generation. In the past, many ethnic actors, like the Hispanics (Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican), struggled in Hollywood and Broadway, since many studios disliked the use of foreigners because of their accents - and other stereotypes. But after the success of Jerome Robbins’ and Robert Wise’s unforgettable classic, West Side Story, which featured Rita Moreno (one of Hollywood’s trailblazers for Hispanic actors and actresses), many fans have caught onto the belief that foreigners can too live the Hollywood dream.

Today, like the Hispanic’s thespain boom in the industry in the 60’s and 70’s, we are seeing more Asians and Asian Americans on both small and big screens; some members which include Kal Penn (House, the Harold and Kumar films), John Cho, Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III, Balls of Fury), Michael Peña (Crash, Observe and Report), Mizuo Peck (Night at the Museum), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Real Women Have Curves), Tim Kang (The Mentalist), and Mindy Kaling (The Office, The 40 Year Old Virgin).

In today’s American music, many singers and musicians have incorporated foreign tastes or have come from a foreign country themselves. Santogold, an American-born singer, has a unique style which meshes the influences of 80’s pop, reggae, and Fela Kuti (Nigerian musician). The internationally-known Mathangi Arulpragasam - aka M.I.A. - is a British-born singer song writer of Sri Lanken descent, who is known for her eclectic music, which incorporates world music, jungle, electro influences and more. In this year’s Academy Awards, Slumdog Millionaire’s hit song, “Jai Ho!”, performed by Indian singers Sukhwinder Singh and Rahman, won the prestigious award for best song in a film. After the film’s success and international popularity, the song was made into a “reinterpreted” version by the Pussycat Dolls, who have Americanized the lyrics, yet, have kept the ideas and sounds of the original Indian pop mix. Interestingly, the original song contains some interspersed Spanish lyrics as well.

Other ethnic musicians who have notably taken stage and popularity in the Unites States are Mike Shinoda (Linken Park), Justin Nozuka, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, System of A Down, Rachael Yamagata and more.

Lastly, in film, there have been an increased number of foreign popularity and the demand for foreign filmmakers in Hollywood. Like its song, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire became a success and highly popular amongst Hollywood’s mainstream audience. The film consists of an entirely Indian cast - some of which were UK-born and the rest, Indian-born - and yet, despite its cast of relatively unknown actors (for the exception of a handful of well known Indian actors), the film was able to prove a huge success while also opening doors to more ethnic acceptance in the film industry.

Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) came onto Hollywood’s biggest stage during the 2006 - 2007 Academy season with their respective highly-rated films in the same year. Their films, each consisting of foreign cast members - shot in foreign countries - were nominated for Golden Globes and Academy awards. Iñárritu’s film even brought a special light on one of his leading actresses - the Japanese-born Rinko Kikuchi - who has caught the eye of several of Hollywood’s big name producers (she will star alongside Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody in The Brothers Bloom, and also Shanghai with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and John Cusack, and the Spanish film, Map of the Sounds of Tokyo). This year’s Academy Awards also brought light to a a few other winners, including Yokjiro Takita for the foreign film Departures, Danny Boyle for directing Slumdog MIllionaire, Jochen Alexandr Freydank for his short film (not categorized as “foreign”), Spielzeugland, and Kunio Kato’s short animation, La Maison En Petits Cubes (also not categorized as “foreign”).

There is no doubt, in today’s entertainment industry and with the popular influence of foreign artists, we will finally see the racial barrier that has plagued Hollywood and the music industry for generations, come down for good. Hopefully, sooner than expected.

Comments (9)

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written by Bailey Ericks , September 01, 2009

I really like this post today.

You are very much so right in the transition we are seeing in today's entertainment and I think it's a great thing. It gets really boring and mundane when you see only one face of humanity don't you think?

Besides as you said the industry is also following the trend of the nation as a whole. It's becoming much more diverse country.

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written by Brisbane Lockheart , September 01, 2009

Makes you wonder what the next ten years will bring after the huge advancement we've seen in the past decade. I always laugh when I see a futuristic show like star trek 300 years from now with a full cast of white people. I'm thinking, but isn't the planet going to be a whole lot more diverse???

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written by Cory, September 02, 2009

Do you think it will improve the image of asian american's? In your last blog relating to this you mentioned how there was a misconstruety.

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written by Chameleon, September 03, 2009

truthfully, i think we'll see Asian Americans becoming more prominent in the industry than before and will become just as big as the latino community. in my previous post, i felt that although the Asian numbers are growing, we're still being typecast or ignored and deemed expendable; with studios reusing originally asian characters/stories and rehashing them with alternated versions. However, even with the typecasting, i have to admit that at least the asian community is being searched through nonetheless, and in the long run, we will have gained prominence. As more and more doors are appearing before our Asian American thespians and performers, the more the chance grows, see? And yes, with this opportunity, the perception of Asian Americans in the industry shall improve.

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written by Julie, September 03, 2009

Interesting response from the writer.

I always had the impression that you were a biracial like myself. So are you are asian american then?

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written by Chameleon, September 05, 2009

lol I AM biracial! i just often speak of the Asian community.

I'm half Japanese, part Venezuelan, part Trinidadian, and part Spaniard.

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written by Amy Ingril, September 05, 2009

Nice post.

Yeah I've started to notice a change in a lot of casting these days. You can even go back to the 80's and you'll see a big difference.

Children of men was really great and I believe stands out to be unique.

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written by VD, September 05, 2009

Yeah just like the new star trek movie coming out. I was surprised at how much diversity was placed into the cast.

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written by Joe, September 06, 2009

I agree with what you've said, but my question is how come a lot of these influences have to come from outside America? How come Americans can't largely create works and introduce talent that challenge the color barrier like those abroad? Aren't we supposed to be the champions of diversity in the world? Does this mean minorities have to go abroad to get noticed for the most part? If so, that says a lot about the climate in the US, but the increasing multinational/multicultural influence in the entertainment industry is still a welcomed one that brings much needed diversity to the scene, and I hope will only continue to grow.

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